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Thank you, Shanghaiist for letting us know what’s going on in certain Chinese education circles.
The principal of the 150-student Henan Child Prodigy School (河南神童学校), Zhang Xuexin (张学新) says he has devised a revolutionary method of training the right brain of children to make them child prodigies. His students can not only memorise their textbooks and ancient poetry, they can actually recite them backwards. Throughout the school and around classrooms, one sees banners such as “China’s first school that teaches education of the total brain” (中国第一所全脑教育学校), “Today’s child prodigy, tomorrow’s talent” (今日东方神童，明日世纪天才) and “I am a child prodigy, I am a memory expert” (我是神童，我是记忆天才).
My only question is–recited backwards phoenetically, or just sequentially? I was always of the phonetically school: being backwards at the most elemental level seemed superior. If only this had been my school growing up; my backwards recitations and signatures (”Ykceb”) were always greeted with barely contained annoyance. And encouragements to try out for whatever regional poor man’s Star Search happening to be begging for talent. Doing things backwards seemed like just another fun supplement (e.g. Opposite Day) to an intensely regimented schooling. Anyone else go through a retrograde phase?
I took most of my class notes in 8th grade in mirror image (like da Vinci). I got to the point where I would have trouble telling if something was forward or backward because they both looked correct. I once wrote group notes backward, and when another member of my group tried to present, he couldn’t read them.
Fast forward several years (now I teach 8th grade), and I was reading a sign on the corner of a moving truck. I walked by it and read it four times before I realized it was flipped so it could be read in the rear-view mirror.
posted by Katie on 8-23-2007 at 10:22 pm
I learned to read and write backwards and upside down. The latter skill (reading upside down) helped me to learn things I might not have known otherwise…
posted by Barbara on 8-23-2007 at 10:23 pm
A symptom of boredom in class, I taught myself to write backwards, upside down, and left-handed in my spare time. Now, I try to translate my textbook and worksheets into German. I’ll write lyrics from memory backwards or in German, or both. I read and write quickly, so I always have some spare time, no matter what the class.
posted by jen on 8-23-2007 at 11:07 pm
Chinese is not like English; it cannot be read phoenetically backwards.
posted by Vivian on 8-24-2007 at 1:33 am
I’m dyslexic (that’s why I like erasable ink), I’ve had a lifetime of focusing on: which is forwards and which is backwards, which letter goes where, what’s left/what’s right. I have to stop and think, and proof-read several times whenever writing (or typing) something.
Don’t ask me for directions. Instead of “turn right” or “turn left” at intersections, I think in terms of “away from” or “towards” landmarks I have set in my head. It takes me forever to translate “go toward gas station” or “away from gas station” into “turn right/left.”
A dyslexic buddy and I went somewhere, two dyslexic guys discussing which way to go. It sounded like it was a comedy routine.
posted by Tdave on 8-24-2007 at 4:34 am
Katie- I find your mirror writing a neat skill. Can you work us through the mechanics of taking notes in mirror writing? If a teacher was speaking and you were writing his/her words:
Are you redacting his/her speech as it is spoken (like normal), only working from right to left and forming backwards letters at the same time? The end result is that it should be readable in a mirror, correct?
posted by Sid Morrison on 8-24-2007 at 7:02 am
Hey, maybe we’re on to something. A long time ago I memorized the alphabet backwards, just as a geeky thing to do. But when I became a parent I started singing it to my children that way as well (as well as forwards, of course, I’m not trying to screw them up). Now my 5 year old will sing the song to her grandmother and at the end say, “Now, backwards!” and sing it backwards. Blows the old lady’s mind. :)
“Now I’ve sung my Z Y X, next time won’t you..do something that rhymes with X.”
posted by Duane on 8-24-2007 at 7:32 am
Reading upside down is a great thing to learn for reading bedtime stories to the kids. That way you can be facing them, they can be looking at the book, and you can be reading it to them from over the top of it. Tends to give me a headache after awhile, though.
Caught my daughter, who was maybe 3 at the the time, doing it once. She saw a book and said “What does W H A T T O….say?” and proceeded to spell out all the letters of “What To Expect When You’re Expecting”. The problem was the book was upside down, so she read it bottom to top, right to left, without anybody actually telling her that. Never did quite understand how her brain made that leap.
posted by Duane on 8-24-2007 at 7:39 am
!od lilts I semitemos …esahp edargorter a hguorht tnew I
posted by Jason! on 8-24-2007 at 8:46 am
By the time I was five, I knew my parents’ names and my own forwards and backwards. My dad was wierd.
posted by Tru on 8-24-2007 at 9:10 am
I have had a backwards clock in my office since I started working. It was my brothers when we were kids and it still keeps great time 30 years later. I’ve always liked that it was a conversation piece - even the name brand and “quartz” are spelled backwards. It tends to really mess people up and I cant read a regular clock any more. Thank gawd most of them are digital now!
posted by Jen on 8-24-2007 at 9:21 am
When in the car, reading signs backwards has been a fun to pass time for me since I have been able to read. It’s like secret jokes planted all over the place. I remember when I was about six, there was an aprtmanet complex near our house called Afton Gardens. Notfa Snedrag (go ahead, say it out loud)got me laughling everytime.
posted by elizabutt on 8-24-2007 at 12:32 pm
I am also dyslexic, but did not reverse letters as much as numbers, symbols, etc. My experience was even weirder. Words looked as though they were moving across the page. (This is why I never dropped acid) I’m not sure when I started doing the reversal thing, but I know that I conciously did it as a mental exercise and to assure myself that I had ultimate control over my disability.
On a funny note: years ago when I was still doing competitve ballroom dance I got the idea that if you had a foreign (usually Eatern European) sounding name, you got a better score. I joked with a friend, Wesley Duncan, that we should start going by Nosilla Dralliw and Yeslew Nacnud If we pronounced the “w”‘a as “V” we thought we might be mistaken for Romanians.
posted by Allison on 8-24-2007 at 1:29 pm
Sid-
That’s exactly right. I wrote the same things in the same order as everyone else, I just started on the right side of the page and formed all my letters backward so it would be readable if you held it up to a mirror. I still like to do it once in a while to keep myself occupied.
On a similar note, I’ve always been able to read upside down. I didn’t realize this was anything special, only that it was helpful as a teacher. I can read things on students’ desks without having to come up behind them.
posted by Katie on 8-24-2007 at 2:08 pm
Katie- More Q’s
1) Is this something you taught yourself (with some effort) or did it just “come natuarally”?
2) Are you right handed and did all this with the right hand? Or left & left? Or mixed?
I just thought of something I do that is a bit odd. I’m right handed, but when I was a little kid, I consciously decided (I remember doing so) that it was “more efficient” to always hold my fork in my right hand and cut with my left & never switch to eat. Americans normally hold the forks in the left hand, cut with the right and then switch the fork to the right to eat. Europeans (I think) do it like I do, except exactly backwards — they fork with left hand, cut with right and don’t switch hands. I’m not sure if any culture typically does my odd approach. I’m always a pain to be seated next to at a crowded dinner table. Anyone else do this?
posted by Sid Morrison on 8-24-2007 at 3:36 pm
Sid-
Happy to answer!
I did teach myself, but it took me all of about an hour to figure it out, and about two days to get completely fluent at it, so you could say it came somewhat naturally. I’m completely right-handed and did all of it with my right hand.
I do strange things like that all the time too, though. I pass time on long drives mapping routes in my head that use only left turns or only right.
As for your knife and fork situation, my mother grew up in Europe as a US Army brat, so I have always used my left hand to fork and right to cut and NOT switched my fork. That may the only thing I do left-handed!
posted by Katie on 8-24-2007 at 5:15 pm
I’ve always been a backwards/upside down reader too. It’s how I keep myself occupied when I’m bored. My favorite backwards word is oscillation- noitallicso. Now that’s just funny.
posted by Alyssa on 8-24-2007 at 5:59 pm
Katie-
that’s awesome. If I ever get some spare time, I might try to teach myself…it could be a decidedly nerdy party trick.
(not that writing backwards is nerdy, but writing backwards at a party?)
I taught myself to read upside down so I could study with class mates without having to deal with space issues, and that was pretty easy. I can also write upside down, albeit very slowly. In activity books that had phrases backward that you had to lift up to the mirror to read, I figured, wouldn’t it be more efficient to skip the mirror, so I taught myself to read backwards too, but writing backwards is a whole other story!
posted by Beth on 8-24-2007 at 6:02 pm
after 17 years of R&D i had a keyboard built to my range of vision, all the fonts are formated in the mirror image & may be viewed at this url`s company @ www.arkayengravers.com click on the link DYSLEXIC KEYBOARD the reason is that i have a eyesight condition there is no cure for known as Strephosumbolia aka mirror image dyslexia, as to learning how to read & write in this style is simple; by useing a black fine tip felttip sharpie pen, write any font on a plain white paper, allow the ink to bleed through the paper, turn the paper over in the horizontal 180 & view the line, if done correctly the return margin will appear on the right side of the page & all letters & print will appear in the true mirror image, if you want to have a little more fun learn to write in BOUSTROPHEDON this style will be an even greater challenge as one has to write normal as well as backwards, the early romans used this text to send secrets to troops as it is a form of zig-zag print that allows not haveing to return to the margin point, start the first line in normal print to the end of it, then drop down to the next line in mirror print, if done right the page will be printed as follows; line 1 normal print, line 2 mirror print, line 3 normal, line 4 mirror and so on
posted by stephen waner on 8-25-2007 at 9:34 am
Duane, you said the exact thing I was going to say. So I guess now I don’t need to say it.
Class boredom has prompted many of the things I do seriously now, like drawing and writing.
posted by Aemi on 8-25-2007 at 9:30 pm
Hey Vivian, “ne dong engwin ma?”
posted by Priest on 8-26-2007 at 1:38 pm
I once heard a story (maybe you’ve heard it, too) of a woman who sat down on a train and was puzzled to see that the man across from her was holding his newspaper upside-down. She asked him about it, and he told her he came from a large family that had story-time, but his parents would always read with the book flat on their lap and right-side up for the parents. Because, depending on where he would sit, the book would be upside-down or sideways, he learned to read without worrying about direction, so everything was “right-side up” to him.
posted by Larissa on 8-27-2007 at 4:44 pm
I can mirror write easily. It has become my party trick.
Several years ago, after reading about DaVinci mirror writing in his notebooks, I wondered if I could do it. And I could… right off the bat. It even still looks like my handwriting when viewed in the mirror.
I can also write mirror with my left hand while simultaneously writing normally with my right (I am right-handed). Just now, for kicks, I tried mirror with my right and normal with my left in tandem; and I can do that to, albeit the left hand side is quite shaky.
For me it’s totally a visual “skill”. I can’t say words backwards at all!
posted by Tammy on 9-2-2007 at 3:30 pm
When I was in middle school, all the notes I wrote to my friends were in mirror writing, so that our parents wouldnt find them and be able to read them. They never did figure it out. I also created a language, using some english letters and some greek, all disguised in random symbols assigned to the letters. Its difficult to explain unless you know see it, but it worked. I’ve never met anyone that could read it
posted by kaiti on 10-19-2007 at 10:52 am
My son, 9 years, can instantly pronounce any word backward, as soon as you say it. Is it a special talent?
posted by Dilip on 11-5-2007 at 6:53 am